DISA picks Vion for 'on demand' storage buy

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The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has awarded Vion Corp. a $700 million contract to provide "on demand" storage at 17 data centers in the United States and one in Germany.

This is the second major contract DISA has awarded in its shift to utility based computing services infrastructure. Last fall the agency awarded contracts to four vendors, including Vion, to provide it with server capacity at its 18 data centers.

Doug Moore, executive vice president of Vion, said the DISA Enterprise Storage Services contract is the largest contract that Vion, a small veteran owned business, has ever won. Industry sources said that EMC and Hewlett-Packard also bid on the DISA storage contract. Spokesman for both companies did not return calls for comment by deadline.

DISA said in its statement of work that it intends to use the enterprise storage contract to provide a reliable, responsive, and cost effective information storage infrastructure of "on-demand" enterprise services.

The agency said it plans to use the contract to provide a "dynamically scalable storage capability," one that can be readily adjusted for changes in processing and throughput requirements. The agency will pay on an "as used" utility basis.